Jerri. If she shows up, call my cell.”
“Can’t do that,” Andrew told me. “I’m going for a bike ride.”
“Stay here!” I shouted. I biked away down the driveway, my aching legs straining against the pedals. At the main road, I stiffly looked back over my shoulder. Andrew was pedaling down the hill, about a football field behind me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, shaking my painful Quasimodo head.
***
At each stop on the paper route, I’d look up the street and find Andrew ghost-like about a block away, riding his bike in circles, waiting for me to move on. He never got any closer because he knew I’d go off on him. I sort of knew what he was up to. He either: A) wanted to see Aleah play the piano, or B) wanted to make sure I didn’t spend time with her alone. I believed the correct answer was “B” because he could’ve ridden directly to her house, skipping all the Felton tailing, if he just wanted to see her in action. In either case, I was terribly irritated and freaked (Jerri).
If my muscles weren’t killing me, I’d charge you like a drunk elephant. I’d go gorilla all over your little monkey ass.
Fortunately for Andrew, I didn’t have the strength to charge, and I was preoccupied with Jerri’s absence, which I found really scary.
Jerri had never been gone when I woke up in the morning. Up until that moment, she’d been there every single morning of my life. Before she turned weirder recently, she wouldn’t let me start a day without hugging me. After she turned weirder but before I got the paper route, she’d have breakfast for me in the morning, and she’d stare at me and try to say something nice, even if incomprehensible. Since the paper route, at least I knew where she was because her car was in the garage when I’d go out there, and it didn’t seem remotely possible that she’d ever leave me. But now gone? Left at midnight? Jesus Christ! Where the hell did she go?
Her absence didn’t faze Andrew one bit.
After hitting the first half of the route, I noticed that my muscles were loosening. By the time we got to Aleah’s block (or the block next to Aleah’s block, in Andrew’s case), the kinks in my neck and shoulders were pretty much gone. My chest and biceps and thighs still hurt, but I felt looser. It occurred to me, coming around the corner, that my muscle disease could have something to do with the weight lifting the day before. The looseness might have meant two things: 1) That I could make my gorilla charge on Andrew, and 2) I could enjoy Aleah’s playing, etc., in relative comfort—if my brain wasn’t torturing me about Jerri’s absence, of course.
But speaking of Jerri, as I rounded the corner, something stunned me so hard I stopped thinking at all and nearly crashed. Jerri’s Hyundai was parked on the street in front of Gus’s house. That is, Jerri’s car was parked in front of the Jenningses’.
I squeezed the front brake on the Varsity so hard that the back wheel came off the ground, threatening to flip me completely over. I jumped off the pedals and steadied myself, staring at this most horrifying sight. Behind me, Andrew had come to a halt. I waved him toward me, my breathing getting thinner and thinner. Andrew kept riding in circles until I hissed, “Get over here, Andrew!” Then he slowly, nervously biked toward me.
When Andrew got to me, he whispered, “I don’t know why Aleah would even like you, you athlete.”
I pointed down the street at Jerri’s car. “Look.”
“Jerri? What the ass?” Andrew’s mouth hung open.
“Come on,” I said.
There was no piano sound floating as we biked slowly forward. The whole neighborhood was still, totally silent. I actually feared noise. I imagined Jerri sitting in that living room, babbling on to Aleah or Mr. Jennings, showing off what a freak show she actually is, talking about Tayraysa and turnips and “engagement” and Tito.
But it was worse than that.
As I approached the car, I saw Jerri’s body folded over the steering wheel. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Andrew.” As Andrew pulled up next to me, he began to scream.
Immediately, Mr. Jennings came bounding out of the screen door.
“Quiet,” he shouted, trying to whisper at the same time. “Steady kids. Steady,” he said. “Your mother’s okay.”
“Jerri’s dead!” Andrew shouted, both of us staring at Aleah’s dad.
Out of the corner of my eye,